Southern Crucifix, Southern Cross

Southern Crucifix, Southern Cross examines the complex and often overlooked relationships between Catholics and Protestants in the antebellum South.

In sharp contrast to many long-standing presumptions about mistrust or animosity between these two groups, this study proposes that Catholic and Protestant interactions in the South were characterized more by cooperation than by conflict.

Andrew H. M. Stern argues that Catholics worked to integrate themselves into southern society without compromising their religious beliefs and that many Protestants accepted and supported them. Catholic leaders demonstrated the compatibility of Catholicism with American ideals and institutions, and Protestants recognized Catholics as useful citizens, true Americans, and loyal southerners, in particular citing their support for slavery and their hatred of abolitionism.

Mutual assistance between the two groups proved most clear in shared public spaces, with Catholics and Protestants participating in each other’s institutions and funding each other’s enterprises. Catholics and Protestants worshipped in each other’s churches, studied in each other’s schools, and recovered or died in each other’s hospitals.

In many histories of southern religion, typically thought of as Protestant, Catholicism tends to be absent. Likewise, in studies of American Catholicism, Catholic relationships with Protestants, including southern Protestants, are rarely discussed. Southern Crucifix, Southern Cross is the first book to demonstrate in detail the ways in which many Protestants actively fostered the growth of American Catholicism. Stern complicates the dominant historical view of interreligious animosity and offers an unexpected model of religious pluralism that helped to shape southern culture as we know it today.

Cover

Title Page, Copyright, Dedication

Contents

Acknowledgments

This work would not have been possible without the advice and support of
many people and organizations.
Emory University provided several grants
for research and conference travel, as well as a fellowship that allowed me
to focus on this project. One of the great pleasures of the project was the
opportunity to explore...

Introduction

In 1842, the citizens of Charleston, South Carolina, lamented the passing
of a great public
figure.
Across the city, church bells tolled; ships in the
harbor flew their flags at half-mast;
and politicians, journalists, and religious
leaders added their voices to the chorus of dismay. The man the city
mourned was not a...

1. Living Together

In 1782, a French immigrant to America named Hector St. John de Crèvecoeur
published his Letters from an American
Farmer. Crèvecoeur had arrived
in North America in the 1750s and traveled throughout
the colonies
before settling in New York. A keen observer of American
life and
a nominal Catholic...

2. Healing Together

Yellow fever struck Augusta, Georgia, in June 1839. The epidemic began
as a few isolated cases along the city’s riverfront, but it quickly spread. By
mid-A
ugust, with over forty confirmed cases and more being reported
each day, Mayor Alfred Cumming convened the city’s physicians to discuss
remedies. Their efforts...

3. Educating Together

A few days before Christmas 1831, a correspondent for the New Orleans
Bee, on his way to Mobile, stumbled on an astonishing sight. On a hill a
few miles outside the city, where the year before he had seen just a scattering
of ramshackle buildings in various
stages of completion, stood a college
of lawns and gardens..

4. Worshipping Together

In 1830, Catholics
in Louisville lay the cornerstone for a new St. Louis
Church. It was an auspicious occasion, signifying growth and influence.
Several bishops had traveled across the country to participate in the event.
But as the crowd gathered, Catholics
discovered that they were not alone—
their Protestant
neighbors...

5. Ruling Together

In July 1835, Charleston was a powder keg. Abolitionist tracts mysteriously
appeared in the city, prompting rumors and panic. The Courier complained
that “incendiary papers and tracts” were arriving by mail—a “monstrous
abuse of this national convenience”—and threatening public
order.1
Charlestonians were...

Conclusion

Few antebellum
buildings survive in downtown Atlanta. Of those that escaped
the destruction of the Civil War, many fell to the wrecking ball as
the city raced to reinvent itself as the commercial capital of the New South.
But in the midst...

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